


Find you in the night

by aryastark_valarmorghulis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussion of Open Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, James Potter Dies, M/M, Minor James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Sirius Black, Past Drug Use, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Romance, past Sirius Black/James Potter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24274303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/pseuds/aryastark_valarmorghulis
Summary: James is dead. Sirius merely exists until he rediscovers life, friendship, happiness and Remus.
Relationships: Past Sirius Black/James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 48
Kudos: 134





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my incredible Beta [maraudorable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentthunder/pseuds/maraudorable) for all the help and support, and to [shessocold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shessocold/pseuds/shessocold), as usual. 
> 
> This story, especially the first half, features heavy themes: handling grief, mourning a partner, coping and surviving after the loss of a beloved one.  
> The death of a pivotal character – James – happened months before the beginning of the fic.  
> It is also very much a romance between Sirius and Remus and, most of all, a story about finding happiness again.  
> The second chapter is already written and I will post it on Thursday.

Sirius blows out a smoky exhale against the dirt-streaked window, tired and sleepless in the unlit hour between night and morning, when the world is bathed in grey shadows and frozen in time. Outside in the barren street, dull yellow spills from two Victorian iron lamp posts, a paper bag rolls down the pavement, and the green cross flashing at the entrance of the chemist says it’s Monday, 19th of March, 1984.

Time goes on, relentless and uncaring.

Reflected in the window glass, Kate stirs under the covers, but she doesn’t wake up – Sirius is pretty sure it’s Kate and not Katie: he forced himself to remember the names because James, years ago, assured him that getting the names wrong falls under the definition of _being a giant arsehole_. James would have found it ironic, really, that Sirius started to listen to him only after his death.

The butt of his fag flickers warmly between his shaky fingers, so he Vanishes it wandlessly.

He should put some clothes on because the cuckoo clock will start to hoot loudly, fastidiously, in twenty minutes, and he’d like to rush Kate into redressing and leaving – probably this is _being a giant arsehole_ , but he can’t bear to eat breakfast with someone. That’s the worst of moments, the one where he asks himself what the point of wearing robes, drinking coffee, picking at a yoghurt and Flooing to the Ministry is. It takes almost an hour to convince himself to do it anyway, step by step, morning after morning, week after week, month after month.

At first he didn’t.

At first he spent all day in bed, not caring if he cried and the sheets were smelly with sweat and the pillow smeared with snot and drool – pain rhyming with apathy when doing even the most trivial of tasks was too much exertion, even brushing teeth or Vanishing the trash. He wanted a distraction like a poisoned person wants an antidote: helplessly, desperately, but unable to get up and find one.

Until he did: he started to go outside only at night, dragging his feet into some Muggle club – he discovered it was easy to find someone to buy unnamed drugs from if one had enough money.

But drugs were only a poor palliative in the first place, because the only trip powerful enough to make him forget about James is the one to the grave, and in the second place, because once Regulus, of all people, had to find him semi-conscious and face down on the bathroom floor. Of course he had to Side Apparate them to St. Mungo’s, where he asked the Healers to fix him, which made Sirius laugh – or maybe it was a sob, his memory of that night is fuzzy at best – and then throw up his humiliation on the shoes of a Mediwizard. That he remembers.

So he quit the hard drugs and pills, even toned down the drinking a bit, and started with sex. Not that it helped much beyond a few moments of mindless relief.

James would have been disappointed in him, but, after all, Sirius lives to disappoint the expectations.

He glances at the black wooden clock, its hand slowly ticking and nearing seven o’clock – then the gears that drive him will have to shift: dress, eat, read the Prophet, Floo to the Ministry, nod to his co-workers and avoid their pitying glances, work, lunch break, work, Floo home, takeaway or leftovers for dinner, survive another day. Like a puppet moved by the invisible strings of his survival instincts.

It’s all menial and meaningless, and yet it’s because of those ingrained habits that Sirius still slips into life and wears the burden of existence like a robe he shrugs off as soon as it gets dark and the long shadows of James stretch to eclipse him once more.

*

He’s eating chips with Peter in a Muggle pub near Soho, the plaid tablecloth dirty under their elbows and the windowpane rain streaked and shiny. The food is greasy but cheap, and their corner table is secluded enough so they can talk about wands and spells without anyone raising eyebrows. Some upbeat Elton John song hums over the rain tapping against the glass.

“How do you feel, mate?” Peter asks, his newspaper cone of chips almost empty.

Again with this stupid question – it must be some sort of ritual all people he meets must partake in. He can almost see the gears shifting in their mind, deciding if they’ll ask something about _it_ , but make it quick and perfunctory because nobody really wants to hear him reminisce about James, or worse, weep or anything equally mortifying.

Sirius carries within him an inherently embarrassing quality, now.

Sirius only shrugs and stuffs his mouth full with hot chips, salty and crunchy on his tongue – but they could taste like cardboard for all he cares about food. He used to be a voracious yet picky eater, but now food is for fuel, not for pleasure.

Peter starts to drone on about the wedding, and about Remus who’s coming back, and about his mum who wants to go to St Oswald's Home for Old Witches and Wizards. Sirius lets him, half listening and half gazing at the kaleidoscope of lights dancing on the window, the droplets trickling down the glass reflecting car lights and neon signs.

He found out he doesn’t like Peter that much without James, and he’s sure it’s not simply a consequence of the world being an empty box without him – they have nothing in common, maybe they never had. Not all school friendships are meant to outlive school, and sometimes Peter is fucking annoying and daft, but Sirius doesn’t bother with telling him off. He could fool himself into thinking he’s trying not to sever ties with him for James’ sake, but James is dead. Sirius can’t do anything for him, he simply doesn’t care enough to pick on Peter – truth is, he doesn’t feel much of anything anymore.

He lived already, and now it’s the aftermath, the fallout – nothing of consequence can happen.

*

James died during a nightly training session, in a country whose name Sirius can’t even spell correctly, falling on the grassy Quidditch pitch because no one had checked the security spells in a long time, so when he was hit by an overexcited Blunder, he was thrown off his broom.

That was it.

It was a small mercy that he didn’t die during an official match – there would have been moving pictures from all angles and follow-up interviews and thousands of eyes witnessing his fall, sickly replaying it in slow motion with Omnioculars. Forever recorded.

It’s a paradox, that he quit following James around the world years prior, so caught up in his own job at Gringotts, but then he was forced to take three Portkeys and a Muggle flight to retrieve James’ ashes. They even tried to make him sign a bunch of paperwork, and now Sirius can’t set foot in that forsaken country anymore or he would be on trial for outrage against Aurors, assault, and attempted murder. Not that he cares: his only regret is that he didn’t manage to do some real damage – Regulus, who accompanied him, Stunned him before he had the chance to and then smuggled him out of the country by nightfall.

After, there had been countless headlines, ranging from _Famous Quidditch player Potter dies on the pitch in a tragic accident_ to _Black heir charged for attempted murder,_ but Sirius wasn’t in a state fit to read papers.

Now the Puddlemere United obtained a small fortune for compensation and Sirius works for the Ministry of Magic – Regulus must have pulled a lot of strings – and doesn’t read the Prophet anymore, he cuts the crosswords page and burns the rest.

Sometimes he still thinks about calling Rita Skeeter and screaming at her a couple of things about their _ill-fated romance_ and assuring her dimwitted readers that James would have cracked up at them being described as _a sunny, good-natured philanthropist star and his turbulent, rebel boyfriend._ But then he decided they don’t deserve to truly know James – they can continue to feel pity and relief that it didn’t happen to them. People can keep the star and the rebel and the star-crossed romance: they were never real, after all.

*

“So, how’s work? Still dull?” Remus’ voice is tinny and the static crackles, but overall their phone-calls are bearable if not, sometimes, pleasant. Remus can talk about anything, from the Dragons reserve in Romania to the sheep he bumps into when he strolls outside of Lyall’s cottage, from the miners’ strikes to the Werewolves Rights movements, with his dry, matter-of-fact tone, and doesn’t ask stupid questions about how Sirius feels and copes and deals and all the idiot stuff Peter and Regulus insist on.

“Still dull,” Sirius confirms. Regulus managed to secure him a spot in the Obliviators Squad. He spends his days erasing memories and filing long, detailed reports for Madame Banks. “Yours?”

A metallic sigh. “Freshly fired again.”

“Bugger, I’m sorry. Do you want me to go downstairs and beat up those good-for-nothings warming their desk at the Werewolf Support Services?”

“Not worth it,” Remus replies. “We’re aiming for peaceful dissent.”

Sirius can picture him wrinkling his nose. “That will surely impress the Werewolf Capture Unit,” he says.

“I know… you’d think they’d appreciate our respectful subtlety, since it won’t cause them the slightest troubles.” A moment of silence. “I might be in London next week, by the way.”

The offer to meet up is there, but Remus never insists, which is precisely why Sirius usually agrees. “We could have dinner at the Leaky,” he says.

*

He didn’t keep James’ ashes – he spread them on the Hogwarts grounds, one cold afternoon like another, the Whomping Willow twisting and thrashing its empty branches like it was wailing in grief.

Sirius didn’t tell anyone except McGonagall and Dumbledore, who granted him permission.

Dumbledore blathered something about hearts breaking or bleeding or some other poetic verb. A _wrench_. Like the heart is nothing but another muscle that stretches when it’s under strain – all it needs is rest and then it’ll heal. Not unlike a sprained ankle.

Is this really all there is? Just another bodily reaction?

Sometimes Sirius can’t breathe, like an iron hand is pressing against his breastbone – but after a while it goes away. Will the grasp around his heart slacken as well? He doubts it – fears it even, not being weighted by James’ absence.

McGonagall was more practical: she led him outside, assured him no one would bother him, her eyes red and shiny when she put a trembling hand on his shoulder before leaving him to it.

Sirius didn’t say anything – he would have felt stupid talking to the dead and he doesn’t believe in afterlife – and he choose not to call Remus or Peter or any of their friends.

Sure as hell he didn’t call Lily Evans – and if James would have wanted _her_ to spread his ashes and deliver a nice speech, well, fuck that; James left them both alone, and for all Sirius cares, she can fucking grieve on her own.

Loss is a solitary experience. An egotistical one, too.

*

“So, it appears I have a part-time job at the Third Hand Book Emporium,” Remus is saying in-between a spoonful of soup – the cheapest meal on the Leaky Cauldron menu. “For as long as it lasts, anyway.”

“So we’re going to be neighbours!” Peter raises his pint. He works for Winikus Press, whose office is here in Diagon Alley as well. “Cheers.”

Sirius isn’t sure Peter detected the pessimistic undertone in Remus’ voice, but he charges his glass to toast and drinks, the bitter liquid gliding pleasantly down his throat.

The three of them don’t get together that often anymore – but before, every time James was back in London, they used to host crowded, loud dinners in their flat. Dorcas and Marlene were there, Alice with Frank, Caradoc, Benjy and the Prewetts. Lily Evans.

He often wondered how he missed it, a glance across the table, a wine glass tenderly poured, a casual touch under the table, and how long it had been going on. James was always the cornerstone of their dinners, the one who made sure to pay the same attention to all the guests, who ordered the food, who chose the music – he was also the glue that held their group together.

James was also supposed to be best man at Peter and Moira’s wedding – now it will be Remus – and Sirius still hasn’t decided if he will pull out a last minute excuse and bail. He’s not sure if he can bear being around happy people and pretend to partake in their joy.

The conversation veers towards small talk and Sirius lets them discuss the election of the new Minister – it’s going to be Millicent Bangold, Regulus assured him – and Peter keeps going on about the wedding. Sirius stares at the bottom of his glass, nods and hums at the wrong times, but they let him be, even if he feels Remus’ gaze on him like an itch.

Peter Floos home early and Sirius is half-thinking of walking to Heaven for a quick fuck because the idea of returning to his dark, empty house and lying on his cold bed seems similar to sliding into his own grave, and that thought stopped being attractive after six or seven months following James’ death.

It’s not that Sirius wants to die – he just doesn’t want to live without James and never learned how to. He crawls into life each morning like a clandestine passenger.

“Walk me home? I rented a flat nearby,” Remus asks, shrugging on his patched jacket.

Remus’ place is in Vauxhall, so not exactly nearby, but tomorrow is Sunday and Sirius hates Sundays, so he’s alright with going home late and sleeping all day.

They wander down the Thames, passing by the black stone Sphinx flanking Victoria Embankments, still crowded with people since it’s not too late – just a few steps ahead, a young couple trades kisses.

The spring night air is cool but not too cold, a reminder of winter just left behind, and Sirius lights up two cigarettes, despite Remus stating that he quit – he only quit when he has to buy his own, and indeed he promptly accepts the fag. Sirius isn’t sure the diagonal scar across the back of his hand was there the last time they met – he wonders if he became a shite friend _after_ , or if he has always been a self-centred prick.

“I haven’t been in London in a long time,” Remus says, after a lull in their conversation. “Some new club I ought to try?”

Sirius is startled for a moment – nobody ever asked him to review clubs, at first because he’d been in a relationship with James since they were teenagers, and now because he’s supposed to be this grieving widower – but then he relaxes, inhaling a long drag of smoke. Remus is, after all, oddly perceptive: the only one who guessed he and James had an open relationship, or at least the only one who asked Sirius about it.

Sirius remembers his questions at their farewell party, many years ago, before James’ first Quidditch World Cup; Sirius had followed him around the world, that time, like the lovestruck boy he was.

Remus, a fag in one hand and an almost empty glass of Firewhisky in the other, had spoken with his usual mid-tone, like he was weighting the chances of Malta winning the Quidditch League. “So, er, how does this shagging other people work? Just curious, not judging.”

Sirius had answered something along the lines of _they’re just people, they don’t matter, Prongs is Prongs._

Remus had laughed, cheeks red and freckled as ripe strawberries – he lost a lot of his usual composure when drunk, awkward limbs loose and bumping into the kitchen counter. “So it isn’t just another of your ways to rebel and defile tradition?”

Sirius doesn’t remember his answer at this point – at the end of the night he was pretty drunk and he shagged James on the carpet – maybe something about how it was his mission to fuck tradition.

Remus’ question is still valid, though.

Sirius ran away from home, gave up an inheritance (that he got anyway), loved a man, convinced himself that monogamy was an outdated concept. Convinced James, too.

Now he’ll never know if James was only complying from the beginning or if he changed his mind about their arrangement. If their relationship was merely a young, first love destined to be outgrown.

If he wanted Lily in a way Sirius didn’t want to be wanted.

“Yes, I know a couple of places,” he answers.

*

He wishes he could be angry at James.

He’d been an angry child and a troubled teenager – always in punishment for speaking out of turn and talking to Muggles on the street, runaway at sixteen – but all the anger seemed to have drained after the attempted murder debacle, like water on a dried riverbed.

Some day he will be angry at James, because in the last year they fought a lot, the owls were sparse and a few times their letters were cold, some not even written, the phone calls were brief and perfunctory, and James was always, always far away, sometimes playing for minor leagues and lesser teams because he needed to see the world before settling down. Or so he said.

When they stole moments in London or Sirius persuaded Gringotts to send him to whatever corner of the world James was, they fought over mundane, meaningless things and then kissed and had one of their marathon fucks before one of them had to leave.

He should be angry at James, should hate him even, for leaving him alone, but he can’t.

Sirius is as empty as a broken glass, devoid of emotions and energy. Sometimes even casting Cleaning Charms is too taxing, so he stares, numb, at the empty, oily takeaway boxes piled on the counter, at the smelly socks dotting the bedroom floor.

Nobody cares about his house, not himself and not his one-night stands – well, his brother might wrinkle his refined nose, but he can shove it.

He pulls himself together when he goes to work, and while he’s there, he longs to return home, to be free of his co-workers endlessly chattering, of the ordinary details of their lives. _My Lizzie just Levitated a teacup and she’s only one year old, I rented a house in Santorini last summer but there were so many Muggles I couldn’t let my Niffler out, my father refused to go to St. Mungo’s until his ears became so long he could wipe the floor with them._

When he’s finally alone again, the silence of his house settles on him like particles of dust, coating him with layers of oppression. In the attempt to find distractions that aren’t drugs or alcohol, he looks for sex, but even when he fucks, he’s aware of the cuckoo clock ticking, inevitably counting the time after James.

It would be easier if he could be angry with him.

*

His brother doesn’t eat lunch in the Ministry’s dining hall with the other employees: he has his food delivered in his own office – Merlin forbid the Vice Head of the Auror office whose last name is Black mingle with the rabble. He also has the annoying habit of sending passive-aggressive origami birds to Sirius’ office to poke at his head with their papery beaks until he opens them to find variations of “ _Come eat with me upstairs if you can but come anyway even if you can’t”._

Sirius only complies because it gets too much in the dining hall: he can see the others watching him like a death omen, a walking _memento mori,_ reminding everyone that one day they will be like him, or their significant other will be – and it’s not exactly a welcome reminder. Even Regulus is preferable to that, even when he asks something stupid like: “What have you been doing lately?” Really, an Auror should be able to pose better questions.

“Obliviated a Muggle family camping outside of Tinworth, they saw a flying Hippogriff and even took pictures, I had to destroy them all.”

Sirius’ sandwich is soggy but he eats it anyway, always better than Regulus’ special delivery of pretentious French bread.

“What else? Apart from work.”

Regulus likes to pretend they both have a life outside of work – the only difference is that Regulus never had one.

“Ate lunch with an annoying tosser.”

“Oh, really? Me too. I’m having dinner with Mother next Friday.”

Sirius huffs. “You’re such a pathetic, sad child, still seeking her approval.”

Regulus doesn’t lose his poise; after all, more or less veiled insults and name-calling are their only method of communicating.

“Well, you’re a sad child yourself, if you haven’t noticed yet,” Regulus retorts.

Sirius shrugs, but the truth is, he’s only grateful that Regulus never treats him any differently, like he is fragile or breakable, that Sirius never finds pity in his icy eyes.

“Doesn’t mean I have to resort to _Mother_ to feel better.”

That, at least, shuts Regulus up for now.

Truth is, his parents shaped his life more deeply than it would seem – while Regulus always strove to find their approval, Sirius put his best efforts to find their contempt.

He believed he had managed it when he was sixteen and the Potters took him in, and he was sure he’d found it when the gossip papers got news of his relationship with James, but now Orion is dead, Walburga’s memory is a torn net that lets names, faces and events slip through its holes, and Sirius simply stopped caring.

*

He hates Sundays.

On Sundays, if both of them were in London, they lazed all day in bed, ordered Indian takeaway at James’ favourite place and ate under the covers with their hands, without caring about crumbs or grease stains on the sheets, without opening the windows to dissipate the smell of fried samosas.

Sirius loved to feed James pieces of tandoori chicken tikka – James always licked his fingers clean, after, and Sirius pushed him on the mattress to show him he was always more hungry for him than for food.

They used to spend all day fucking and eating and sleeping and laughing.

If he closes his eyes, he can still feel James’ warm, calloused fingers stroking his forehead, his nose, his mouth, his collarbone, his chest, his navel, his prick. He can still remember how easily he could make James laugh and then turn that laughter into moans and sighs.

Sundays are the worst. The right side of the bed is cold and Sirius can’t find a good reason to get up, so he stares and stares at the white ceiling above him until it darkens with long shadows, his mind blank and muddy and slow. Sundays are like expecting something that doesn’t come, like being suspended in a precarious state of waiting – he tosses, he turns, he bites his fingernails, he stretches his legs, he chain-smokes, but nothing ever comes except nightfall.

The wheel of time spins, as much as Sirius attempts to turn it backwards on Sundays, threatening to turn his and James’ relationship into some fairytale that happened once upon a time. He looks at the facts.

Fact: he’s known James since he was eleven. Fact: they were together for six years, but Sirius has loved him for thirteen, as weird as it sounds.

Question: did Sirius before James exist? He doubts it, he was merely a child.

Fact: a Sirius after James shaped up, a shaky, dark creature moulded with loss and grief and loneliness. 

Question: had he ever been happy before James? Could he be, after?

He knows what they all think, from his brother to Remus, from Peter to Dorcas, from Marlene to McGonagall: that he’s still young, handsome and rich and the world goes on, so he’ll go with it. Facts. Or so it appears.

He lives, he breathes, he puts milk in his tea instead of sugar, he combs his hair when it’s long, he sweats when Marcia casts too many Heating Charms in the office, his stomach aches when he drinks too much, his wand shoots sparks when he’s impatient, his prick twitches when he sets his eyes on someone across a dark, crowded room. All facts.

There are days when facts are almost enough. And then there are days with no glasses on the nightstand, no warm feet to caress with his own and no meaning behind all the daily routines that set him in motion.

He could be a Transfigured stick, moving and talking and working like a man, with nothingness underneath.

*

He doesn’t get out of bed that Tuesday.

It happened more frequently before. It will happen again.

*

A few months earlier, Peter gifted him a self-help book – the pretence was that he edited it and wrote the back cover blurb – about the importance of friends and rekindling lost friendships and a bunch of assorted nonsense. At least he didn’t give him a book about overcoming grief, but still, it was quite a bit heavy-handed.

He only skimmed through a few pages before tossing it away, but he remembers the gist: life can come between, people move, falling-out happens, adults’ schedules are busy.

_You take different paths_ , this line he remembers. Still thinks it’s a shame people spend money on such a trivial book, but his mind takes an odd detour tonight and those words are returning to him.

He’s sharing a pint with Remus at a Muggle pub near Leicester Square – he found him casually lounging in the Ministry’s Atrium, and he’s aware of how much Remus loathes the place. He said something about surviving his first day at the bookshop and the need of a drink.

_Sure_ , Sirius said. Anything’s better than returning home and opening the empty fridge.

Still, in the last two years he hasn’t seen a lot of Remus: only Christmas Eves and New Year’s parties and the odd weekend he got back from Romania – and right after James, well. Some details are smudged at the corners, since at the time he was doing a lot of drugs, but he distinctly remembers telling him to _fuck off_.

Remus was, of course, ever too polite to mention it, and continued to write and call until Sirius started to write back and answer. It’s strange that they’re both in London again, alone in a way they’ve never been before, without James and with Peter all caught up in Moira and furnishing their cottage in Surrey. Their friendship is still there, underneath – two years can’t erase growing up together in a dorm and sharing every single mundane detail of their lives for seven years – dormant, maybe, but Sirius decides he _wants_ to make it tangible again. Only now it dawns on him, how he misses having a true friend – with James the line between friend and lover was always blurred, but Remus has always been there, after all – he just wishes the awkward part of rekindling to be over and for them to reprise at once the same level of intimacy they once had.

He looks at Remus, pushing past patrons with two beer mugs, and a thought startles him, sadness sinking in his veins like some kind of truth potion: after James, how many friends he pushed away, how many collateral relationships he squandered, letting them fade and dissolve into irrelevance, he wonders. He used to have so many friends: Remus, Peter, Marlene, Dorcas, Mary, Alice, Frank, Gideon, Fabian, Benjy, Emmeline. _Lily Evans._

_Caradoc_ , whom he fucked a few months ago and then never talked to again.

But it can’t be too late – Remus is still here, after all, placing on the table two glasses of foaming red ale.

“So how’s work?” Sirius asks, and then grimaces. He sounds _exactly_ like Peter, but what do you say to break the ice? Not to mention he prefers avoiding to talk about James, which isn’t an easy task when Remus knew the man for as long as Sirius did.

Remus huffs and dawns half of his pint in one long gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He wasn’t that carefree the other night, with Peter – or maybe Sirius didn’t notice because he was having a shite day. “Not bad, maybe a little boring, but alright.”

“Well, after dragons even your beloved books might seem dreary, I’m afraid,” Sirius says. “Speaking of, why did you quit?”

Strange thing, curiosity. Sirius seemed to have lost any appetite for it, and yet here it is again, jumping out of the place where he stowed all the things that make Sirius _himself_ and not half of a severed shadow. Maybe a Sirius without James can exist, after all.

Remus shrugs, fiddles with the handle of his tankard. “I just… got bored, after a while.”

Sirius sips his beer, the malt undertones compensating the bitterness. “Bored of _dragons_?”

Remus shifts his eyes, the paper napkin crumpled between his hands. “Yes,” he shrugs again. He’s definitely not telling something, which he is entitled to, of course – Remus has always been sort of reserved, especially regarding relationships, and Sirius can’t expect a friendship to survive two years of distance without sustaining some trust injuries.

Still, there was a time when Remus, drunk or high or both, spilled all his secrets in his bathroom at two a.m., and a sweeping gust of nostalgia for those easier, happier times nestles deep inside Sirius’ chest.

“Was it a woman?” he jokes. Remus only laughs – he’s always had a nice, throaty laugh, and the corners of his eyes crinkle.

“A man?” Sirius goes on, teasingly. “A _dragon_?”

Remus laughs again, his cheeks pleasantly flushed, but he shakes his head. “A sheep,” he answers. “A very cute sheep.”

Sirius grins, and before he’s even realizing it, he’s chuckling softly. He almost forgot that his muscles could arrange themselves in such a simple expression of amusement – he must’ve done it a billion times and yet it seems he discovered something new and strange, that he’s allowed to share a smile with a friend, once in a while.

“Alright,” Sirius allows. “Keep your secrets.”

Remus shakes his head, a faint smile still lingering on his lips. “But I have no secrets, I swear, I’m the most boring werewolf to ever live,” he says.

Sirius shoots him a _look_ but doesn’t press yet – Remus has a talent for being discreet and making himself fade in the background, but he’s never been boring.

“Come on,” he says. “Tell me about dragons.”

*

Sirius doesn’t think about James all the time – there’s work, and his brother, and eating, washing, shaving, Household Charms – but sometimes his mind tricks him when he isn’t. He steps out of the bathtub, wet and cold and dripping on the towel he spread on the floor, so he slips into his bathrobe, grabs his wand and dries his hair. He’s still shivering, though, and there’s a vague throbbing behind his temples, an aftertaste in his mouth that tastes bitter. He clutches the lip of the sink and looks at himself, looking for clues, but his usual face blinks back: and yet there’s something awry, some obscure wrongness he can’t grasp, like the earth just tilted at a wrong degree and only Sirius’ body registered it, but his mind failed to notice. Maybe he’s been Cursed – it would explain why the air seems so dense in his lungs, so laborious to inhale. He clutches his wand with clammy fingers and breathes – for a frenzied moment he doesn’t understand the sudden bleakness overcoming him, like a curtain is closing on his limbs; the bathroom light dazzles him, so he shuts his eyes closed, and that’s when he remembers.

It’s James’ absence. The earth _has_ tilted on the wrong axis and life _is_ supposed to be miserable – he just forgot for a moment, but now he remembers.

Only his mind is starting to rebel against it – tricks him into forgetting, into believing this bleak coating is wrong, and not the opposite. He breathes, wand clattering to the sink, balls his hands in fists and then opens them again.

He watches his bare feet on the wooden parquet – twenty steps, from the sink to the dark hallway, a raised arm to grab the phone’s handset. Magic hums on his fingertips like static electricity and the phone’s already ringing, even if muffled against his ear. It rings once, twice, thrice – Sirius presses his left hand against the cold wall and sighs. 

“Hullo?”

Sirius stares at nothing in the dark hallway.

“Sirius…? Is that you?”

He breathes. “Yes.”

“What is it? Where are you?” Remus sounds, understandably, worried.

“Home,” Sirius answers. “I was feeling weird,” he hears himself explaining, fully aware he sounds pathetic and he should be drinking himself to sleep right this moment instead of bothering Remus. “I’m sorry I’ve woken you up, it’s nothing,” he lies, because the queasiness in his guts has not subsided.

“Well, can I Apparate to yours and keep you company?”

Sirius stares at the blackness surrounding him from all angles like a cloud, and he opens his mouth but he doesn’t know what to say, his tongue slow and heavy in his mouth.

“Or you can Apparate to me, if you’re up to it, just tell me and I’ll –”

Sirius’ body takes over once more: the handset smacks against the phone and he turns on the spot with a loud crack.

“Fucking _Merlin!_ ” Remus splutters, dropping his phone, the cord bouncing against the wall.

Sirius feels a wave of shame spreading through to his chest, standing in this tiny flat, barefoot and clad in a bathrobe – at least Remus is wearing striped pajamas and argyle socks.

“Sorry,” Sirius says. He should explain but he doesn’t even understand why he called in the middle of the night: he doesn’t usually show others his miserable side.

“Don’t be silly… Look, you can rifle through my trunk if you want something to wear, and if not, just sit on the couch. I’ll make tea and I promise I won’t try to make you talk about it, alright?”

Sirius nods and, as if Remus weaved his wand to move a puppet’s strings, turns towards the open trunk standing beside the mattress lying against the wall, rifling through the tiny drawers and grabbing pair of threadbare flannel pants that he puts on without dropping the bathrobe and then a Joy Division t-shirt. When he turns, Remus is holding a steaming mug in each hand, the light bulb above him casting sickly shadows under his eyes; Sirius sits obediently on the sagging sofa, ashamed he woke Remus up to demand attention he doesn’t even really want.

Remus sits next to him and the sofa creaks, but he ignores it, crossing his legs and blowing on the mug. “It was a bad night for me, too,” he says, sipping his tea.

Sirius cradles the warmth of his cuppa between numb fingers, inhaling the sweet smell. “Really.”

Remus hums. “The moon’s in two days, so.”

_Fuck_. He totally forgot about the moon: he truly is a shite friend.

“Really, I’m glad you called,” Remus repeats. The attempt at making Sirius feel better is only making him feel like an arse, until Remus’ fingertips graze the hair at the back of his neck, stroking clumsily, like petting Padfoot instead of a grown man, but they’re also soothing. Sirius closes his eyes for a moment, a strange comfort between the unknown fondness of a mother – or a father, or a brother – and the faraway intimacy of a lover slowly warming his insides. He remembers it has a name, and it’s friendship, and it must still mean something.

“Where are you spending the full moon?” Sirius asks, scalding his tongue with a too long sip of tea. Remus withdraws his fingers.

“Oh, my dad’s cottage, since he still has the cellar all set up with the charms. Much better than the Ministry basement.”

“Want Padfoot to keep you company?” Sirius asks without even thinking, but as soon as the offer leaves his mouth, he knows it’s the most sensible thought he’s had this night.

Remus looks at him, mouth slightly open, his brown eyes pensive. “That’s very generous of you, but you don’t have to feel like you owe me –”

“Don’t be a tosser, Moony,” Sirius interrupts him, as gently as he can – classic Remus, believing himself a burden. “I’m coming.” The more he thinks about it, the lighter the weight in his stomach feels – it’s good to be helpful, to be needed. Hasn’t been in a long while.

Remus hides a small, tired smile behind his mug. “Alright, then… thanks a lot, Padfoot.”

*

Sirius yawns and stretches in the tiny kitchen, elbows bumping into the cupboard, rubbing his eyes, a thread of light seeping through the yellowed curtains above the sink. Sat at the wooden table, Lyall is staring at his steaming cup of coffee, his eyes unblinking, fatigue etched in the deep lines around his mouth and eyes – Sirius suspects he didn’t have much sleep knowing his son was howling and tearing at the walls downstairs.

After a yawn that makes his jaw pop, he shakes his head as if he’s still Padfoot and takes a sip from his own mug left for him on the counter – the black coffee is strong and bitter and scalds his tongue, but manages to wake him up a little. He hasn’t pulled an all-nighter with Moony in such a long time that he’s unaccustomed to it by now, but he remembers seeing, albeit through Padfoot’s eyes, so many scars Remus didn’t have at Hogwarts, old and white and lining his body like angry scratches on wood, and feeling ashamed.

Once, he remembers a half-drunk James promising Remus they would spend every full moon together even after Hogwarts, and he and Peter eagerly nodded – they were only young, naive boys, after all, but he wonders if Remus resents them for the broken oath. In his place, Sirius would have, but Remus has always been kinder than him.

“It was nice of you to come, Sirius,” Lyall says, his voice low so as to not disturb Remus sleeping on the couch. “Thank you.”

The pang of guilt stings him right in the chest – now Lyall is thanking him for remembering about his son, who’s supposed to be Sirius’ best friend, whom Sirius conveniently forgot about, too wrapped up in his pain.

He shakes his head. “I’ll come every time from now on,” he says, then he bites his tongue. It’s awfully similar to James’ promise, and as much as he means it now, watching Remus’ hair peeking out from under the blanket, he should have learned not to make promises. They’re so easily breakable.

He almost asks Lyall about Remus’ other moons in all these years – how many did he miss? Fifty? Sixty? – but it wouldn’t be fair to ask the father what the son is too reserved to speak of.

“That’s very generous,” Lyall says. He’s drinking, too, blowing on his cup. “Still working at the Ministry?”

“Yes.”

“The usual chaos?”

“Pretty much.”

They fall back into silence. Lyall is as bad as Sirius at small talk – what if it’s a widowhood’s peculiarity, developing a habit of not saying too many unnecessary words. The thought almost makes him laugh: it’d be the only thing he and Lyall have in common, for sure. That, and Remus.

His eyes flicker to Hope’s framed picture placed on the mantelpiece, a magic picture of her holding a pair of scissors and a bunch of flowers, her short blonde hair pushed back by the wind, prompting Sirius to wonder if Lyall was exactly what Sirius is now. If many years later Sirius will become Lyall: Remus told him he goes to the town pub to play cards and grows magical herbs he sells to a local apothecary. A harmless old man.

Somehow his mind rebels at it – maybe it’s some sort of egotistical arrogance, but he deceives himself into thinking his pain is different. He bets everyone who lost someone thinks that.

Deluded idiots.

*

Sirius looks at pictures of James often, afraid the scissors of time will cut his face from his memory – already he closes his eyes and sometimes he can’t conjure up his face, only a fuzzy reflection. Somewhere he read that we know our beloved faces’ for so long, saw them so many times, arranged in so many expressions, thinking, laughing, eating, sleeping, fucking, arguing, that all the impressions are crammed into memory together, in one single, enormous blur.

So he resorts to pictures for rearranging all the impressions in order: dark eyes behind glasses, a dimple on the chin, warm bronze skin, black hair Sirius combed through thousands of times with his fingers, long, muscled legs, knobbly knees, big hands – and then other details he can’t find in pictures, like the round scar on the left forearm, the dark trail leading to his groin, the apple-shaped birthmark on the inside of his thigh.

Sirius fears he will struggle to remember all that, one day. He recalls his mother calling Regulus all sorts of names – Orion, Sirius, Alphard, Cygnus... He doesn’t want to forget. Forgetting seems worse than suffering.

After realising he owned only a few pictures of them together – some from birthdays and parties, others black and white clippings from magazines and papers, barely enough to fill a small leather-bound album – he finally decided to open the box of James’ belongings that was mailed to him by the Puddlemere manager, the one James travelled with.

He found lots of magic Polaroids: red deserts with floating grains of sand, ice-capped mountains, temples carved in rock, waterfalls, pagodas and pyramids and skyscrapers and mosques, all memories of a life where Sirius was nothing but a liminal presence, a face cropping up once in a while. A life Sirius began to loathe, a life that, in the end, James preferred over the one they had together.

And of course, at the bottom of the box, there was the smiling, beautiful face of Lily Evans, tossing her red hair and winking at the camera. Mocking him.

-


	2. Part 2

If someone asked Sirius how long he’d loved James, he would answer since they were eleven-year-old kids on the Hogwarts Express. Maybe it’s creepy, maybe it’s weird, but he doesn’t care.

James was his first friend, his brother, his light side of the moon even before he became everything else. It only seemed natural they tried everything together while they were growing up – they were each other’s first everything: first crush, first kiss, first fuck, first love.

They got together at the end of their seventh year, at first for fun and then for real, until they moved in together and started to use words like _love_ and _boyfriend_ and _partner_.

During those first months Sirius found out what freedom and happiness tasted like – James was everything he could desire: someone who knew all his ugliest corners and yet accepted him and valued him above everyone else, handsome without turning too many heads, rich but generous, willing to illegally transform into an Animagus to help a friend, clever and like-minded, eager to see the world and share it with Sirius. A hundred years wouldn’t have tamed him – nothing was wasted on James, he lived and loved freely, agreeing to dive into a relationship with a man, uncaring of his public image as a professional Quidditch player, refusing to hide Sirius, and he tossed away every false moralism and propriety when Sirius proposed an open relationship: together, they took wizarding traditions and fucked it for good.

They discovered their bodies in previously unknown ways, nothing forbidden or taboo or too weird to be voiced out loud and tried at least once – they used to tell each other about their experiences with other men and women, invite people in their bed, pretend they were strangers and fuck outside, in dingy alleys and on Sirius’ bike.

Sirius had never been happier.

*

Remus calls him a lot, lately.

They’re eating curry in a vile Muggle place not far from Remus’ flat, sat at a tiny corner table, the harsh neon lights highlighting the premature lines etched at the corners of Remus’ eyes and mouth – he doesn’t look twenty-four, not with greying hair and deep shadows under his eyes. The sleeves of his jumper are dotted with tiny holes.

“Do you need money?” Sirius asks.

Remus chews on his curry and regards him with his brown eyes, a vertical line appearing between his eyebrows. “Do I have to need money to ask a friend to the pub?” he asks.

“I just meant that I have plenty, _if_ you need it,” Sirius shrugs. Maybe he was indelicate. He has no idea if he should care about tact with someone who once threw up in his bathroom, someone he saw shivering and naked and bloodied once a month for three years.

It’s true that he has more money than he can spend, though: his job at the Ministry pays well, and he owns half of the Black family treasure, after Regulus convinced Walburga to reinstate him as heir, and half of Alphard’s inheritance. He also has all the Potters money, but he’s not touching that – maybe he could give some to Remus. James loved his _dear old Moony_ and lent him money more than once.

“You’re a true humanitarian,” is the dry answer, equipped with a _look_. Remus wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, balls it up and then rakes his hand in his messy, unkempt hair before speaking again. “Oh, er… I’ve been meaning to tell you that I found some pictures when I was clearing up my old room at my dad’s… They’re nice, some of the four of us, one of you and James. They’re yours if you want them.”

Sirius stops breathing for a second – he doesn’t talk about James with _people –_ but Remus’ eyes are huge and it’s not pity flickering behind his gaze but sadness.

He should have realised first, but it only hits him now, that he’s not the only one who lost James, who cared about him – James was loved by so many people, but Sirius, so caught up in his own grief, never thought he wasn’t mourning him alone. He wonders how Lily Evans is mourning, if she has someone to share her pain with.

“Yes, I’d like – I’d like to see them. Thanks, Moony.”

*

Only now, after almost ten months, he resolved to move into the guest bedroom, leaving the room he shared with James first and with his absence later; the bed is narrower but soft, half of the dresser and the wardrobe are empty, the sheets never knew the warmth of James’ skin or the exact pitch of his laughter, the deep timbre of his voice.

It’s like crossing a threshold for the first time, dipping into a new world with the same uncertainty of a toddler making his first steps – he’ll fall many times, but it appears his grief has almost reached an expiration date: pity and compassion seem to have vanished from his co-workers’ faces, Peter doesn’t ask him how he’s doing with a pinched expression, Regulus is urging him to apply for the Aurors training program, assuring him his attempted murder charges are old history by now.

The world is forgetting and it seems like he should, too. Maybe in the end, memories are nothing but shadows of the past – they stretch at night and dissipate at dawn.

*

Sirius, wearing a very ugly Christmas jumper, puts a headband with reindeer ears in James’ hair, who laughs, glasses all askew, and then grabs Sirius’ chin to plant a kiss on his mouth, mistletoe blossoming mid-air above their heads, someone’s elbow – maybe Dorcas’ – moving in the corner of the frame.

They’ve kissed at least twelve times before Sirius manages to tear his eyes off the magic picture between his fingers.

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, not caring if Remus sees him because Remus is currently sprawled on the carpet – his kitchen has three chairs, but two are uncomfortable as hell – and intent on sifting through the records Sirius brought him. He’s probably only feigning a deep concentration on The Stooges to leave Sirius a semblance of privacy. Sirius appreciates the thoughtfulness.

“Can I keep this one?” Sirius asks. His voice sounds strange to his own ears, rough and loud.

“Of course,” Remus replies, only lifting his head for a brief smile. “You can keep them all, if you want.”

“Thanks, Moony,” Sirius says, and tucks the picture inside the inner pocket of his robe.

*

Sirius swings his long legs on the porch swing, clutching a can of beer already crinkled at one side. There isn’t a record player or a wireless in the Lupins’ cottage, but the waves forcefully crashing on the rocky beach sound like a pleasant soundtrack. A seagull cries, and far, in the open shimmering waters, he glimpses a couple of Merpeople tails.

“I found pictures of James and Lily between the... his personal effects.” He’s not sure why he just said that.

Remus hums – he’s good at being an attentive listener without uttering a word – but turns to him, leaning with his back against the wooden porch column.

“In one, they were naked,” Sirius explains. He gulps down his beer. “I burned it.”

At that, Remus stares. “Do you believe he was…?”

“Cheating?” Sirius cuts him off. He can’t help but grimace: that word really doesn’t suit him. “It was never about faithfulness between us – we weren’t... you know all this already, Moony.”

Remus nods. “Yes, yes, you hate labels and conventions”

Sirius doesn’t ask if Remus means _you_ as in he, Sirius, or you as in Sirius _and_ James both – for five years he was sure James shared the same beliefs about monogamy, but now he’s not sure anymore. He doesn’t remember him complaining, but did he pay enough attention? After almost a year, the James in his head is turning more and more into a fantasy man, the product of his own memories, a James _seen through Sirius’ lenses_ instead of the real James. And he’s not here to contradict Sirius’ projecting habits anymore, only seven pictures of him and Lily Evans are _–_ not that pictures can speak any more than James can.

“So why did it bother you, seeing those pictures? Were they… different?” Remus asks the real question, as usual.

On the back of one of the pictures a few words were scribbled – _Come back soon, I love you so much –_ that’s why it did bother him. It did fucking bother him and he doesn’t need to spell it out for Remus, since it must be plainly written on his face.

It’s not even about the pictures or Lily, not anymore: it’s about something that’s been going on for a long, long time, before James’ death, something Sirius never confessed to anyone, not even to himself.

“I believe James was... I think he wanted to leave me for her, he wasn’t happy with our arrangement anymore – fuck, did – did James ever talk to you about me?” Words tumble out of his lips before he can even think them.

“James talked about you all the time, he lov _–_ ”

“Spare me, Remus, alright?” He startles Remus, so he sighs and lowers his voice again. “Did he ever say anything about leaving me? About Lily?”

Remus shakes his head, a ray of sun turning his hair into a golden halo.

“No, never…” he replies. He tilts his head to the side. “Look, you can’t know – would you have changed your arrangement of an open relationship if he’d asked you?”

Sirius swallows. “A bit late to ask myself this question, don’t you think?”

“I think you can’t answer,” Remus explains, like it’s simple and Sirius is being daft, “questions that were never asked.”

 _Easy for you to play the wise friend role, isn’t it._ He doubts Remus has had anything more than hook-ups in his life and it’s easy to issue judgments when there’s nothing at stake – but he shuts up. He understands how much Remus’ lycanthropy has crippled his love life – or the lack of it.

Some relationships work in a particular way, others are different, and people are allowed to change their minds, Sirius thinks. Two seagulls cry to each other, flying just above the waterline.

“Would you like an ice-cream?” Remus asks.

“Sure.”

*

The unremarkable daily grind wins, in the end. It’s been a year, and Sirius is still alive.

*

One day he stayed all afternoon outside the door of the Apothecary inside St. Mungo’s, sweaty and uncomfortable, crouched under the Invisibility Cloak, observing Lily Evans behind the counter, crushing herbs with a mortar, breaking Ashwinder Eggs and slicing Dandelion roots, smiling politely at the everyone who entered.

He could almost see himself, as if watching a movie at a Muggle theatre, going inside. What would she think? He tried to guess if she was a good liar, if he could corner her to spill the truth, but then he thought, _why_ should he.

To verify if she was suffering enough – and who decides when enough is enough? – or to assert James belonged to him more than to her? James wasn’t anybody’s but his own; people don’t belong to others when they’re alive, and even less when they’re dead.

 _I miss you_ , she had written, _I love you._

*

Sirius stands on the damp shoreline, waiting for the waves to crash back on his bare feet, nose upturned towards the slices of sunlight peeking out from the clouds, sheer and impalpable like spun sugar. Seawater splashes on his ankles, cold but not unpleasantly icy, the hem of his cuffed jeans already damp.

Remus is lying on a beach towel just a step behind, where the sand is still dry, wearing an outdated pair of sunglasses, khakis that Sirius immediately made fun of, and a big shirt with rolled up sleeves: it’s impossible to tell if he’s asleep or not.

As soon as the waves churn again against the shore, Sirius kicks at the water. A cold spray splashes Remus’ bare feet.

“Tosser.” He hasn’t even moved, so he was definitely awake and watching Sirius.

“What were you thinking about?” Sirius asks.

“I told you: that you’re a big tosser.” The left corner of his mouth curls upwards.

Sirius splashes him again, more forcefully this time – and now his own jeans are damp up to his thighs, and Remus still doesn’t move.

“Ha. What else? Romania? _Sheep_ ?” he teases, but by now he asks not because he wants to pry – he kind of does – but because it became some kind of private joke between them. Remus and his mysterious _sheep_ he doesn’t talk about.

Remus smiles his mild smile that could mean anything and nothing at all. “No sheep… I was thinking about an old movie, that’s all.”

Sirius sits next to him, dry and wet sand mixing between his toes. “What old movie?”

Remus sighs, his chest rising and falling under the faded shirt he’s wearing. “Oh, I’m sure you haven’t seen it, it’s very old, a black and white movie. _From Here To Eternity_.”

Sirius doesn’t own a telly and has seen very few movies in his life – this one isn’t amongst them.

“Sounds like the sort of soppy movies only you like,” he jokes.

Remus only hums. “It was my mum’s favourite movie, actually.”

Sirius turns to look at the sea, elbows on his knees and both hands under his chin, at the misty horizon line, where the sky and the water blur together in shades of blue. He doesn’t want to share nostalgic stories about the dead but he’s willing to listen to Remus’ – he repeats to himself he’s not the only one who lost someone, and not everyone risks going mad if they speak about it instead of just thinking.

“What about it?” he asks. He hopes Remus doesn’t start to reminisce about his dead mother or worse, cry. But Remus does nothing of the sort, he merely stretches his arms and folds them behind his head – it’s been two years since Hope died. Maybe Remus reached the stage where he can think and talk about her without despair, maybe the pain receded to a bearable vague sense of sadness that lives side by side with him.

“Oh, there was a famous beach scene – waves crash upon the shore, fit bloke and beautiful lady kiss one on top of the other when the water hits them, then she gets up and runs to throw herself on the sand, he chases her and they kiss again. She’s married and he’s a liar so it doesn’t end well...”

Silence. Sirius nods, not sure if Remus’ eyes are open or not – but he thinks they are – and not sure what to say. Remus is so bloody hard to read sometimes that Sirius has no idea if he wants to talk about Hope but is afraid of breaking him or something, or he feels lonely and wants someone to kiss, or if maybe it was merely a mental association.

So he decides it’s safer to resort to humour, because Remus usually laughs at his stupid jokes and he found out it’s really satisfying to elicit a laugh from him – and it’s not so odd anymore, to smile with a friend.

“What made you think about it? Do I look like the fit bloke? Or like the beautiful lady?”

Remus snorts and shakes his head, but he is indeed smiling. “Merlin, you’re so vain.”

Sirius spreads out on the beach, uncaring of the sand getting in his hair, poking Remus’ leg with his knee.

“Hey, do you want to go with me to that club in Soho I was telling you about?” Sirius asks. They haven’t been to a club together so far – but why not?

Remus knows he has one-night stands – once, on a Sunday morning, he brought him breakfast and found Sirius, thankfully dressed, with a woman named Judy who was just leaving – and Sirius knows he has his fair share, too.

But Remus shakes his head. “No, you go alone, I’m not feeling too well.”

The full moon is in two days, Sirius hasn’t forgotten. “It’s fine, we’ll go another time – we can Apparate to your flat and order whatever you want to eat, maybe listen to some of your cool rec–”

“No, no, you go to that club, I don’t want to spoil your evening!”

Sirius sits up again, shaking off some sand from his hair and back. “Don’t be silly! That club will still be there next week.”

Remus opens his mouth, surely to protest and say something self-deprecating, so Sirius cuts him off. “I prefer to stay with you and have a nice, quiet evening, alright?”

“If you say so.” Remus’ tone is slightly ironic, tinged with a hint of sarcasm.

“Bugger off, Moony, if I’m left alone, chances are I’ll have an existential crisis like the other night and Apparate to yours anyway, so.” It’s almost liberating, to say it out loud – he’s still embarrassed, but Remus has truly seen him at his worst and is still here. And after all, if he can reference Hope, then Sirius can comment on his breakdown – it means they can talk about pretty much everything. Except James, of course.

Remus sits up, too, his hair all mussed and a deep line creasing his forehead, sunglasses askew on his nose. “You know you can Apparate to mine whenever you want, right?”

“That’s my point, Remus – why can I Apparate to yours whenever I want but I can’t keep you company when you’re unwell? Don’t you find it a little hypocritical?”

Remus pushes his sunglasses up his nose – a James-like gesture, but Sirius pushes that pang of pain down, to the recesses of his mind, where it always lurks.

“Alright, I – alright, of course you can...” he says. “Thank you, Padfoot.”

Sirius huffs and reaches out to ruffle Remus’ hair for a moment, but he quickly drops his hand. He’s not sure if friends even ruffle each other’s hair. “You don’t have to thank me, you silly tosser.” Especially since he left him to spend so many full moons alone. “It’s not a chore.”

Remus shrugs. “Well, you’re giving up a night of fucking with a hot stranger for me, after all.” Again his faint, barely there smile.

“Well, maybe I like you better than hot strangers I usually have three words with. Sometimes they’re not even that hot.”

Remus laughs softly. “I bet you can have anyone you want.”

If it was someone else, anyone else, Sirius might almost think they were flirting and he really, really wishes Remus would remove his sunglasses so he could see his eyes.

*

His beer is almost finished, and so far he’s refused the advances of at least five men without even looking at them – Sirius is not sure if he’s just not in the mood or if for some weird inexplicable reason he doesn’t feel comfortable in pulling someone under Remus’ eye. And he’s still mulling over the doubt whether they’re flirting or not.

Not that Remus shares the same concern or is even looking at him – he’s talking with an older man in the corner of the dance floor, heads close, hands touching.

“That bloke’s stealing your boyfriend, darling.” The drag queen that slides on the stool next to him is wearing a shiny and cheap red wig with a sweeping fringe, but her black vinyl heels look as expensive as her strapless orange dress.

“Not my boyfriend,” he replies, and chuckles at the thought. “We’re friends. Very old friends, since school.” He doesn’t know why he’s adding details – probably the shots they’ve dawned before are kicking in.

The drag queen crosses her long, muscled legs, orders a Vodka something and shoots him a pitying smile that makes Sirius almost crack up – of all the reasons he could be a recipient of pitying glances!

“I’m Paradise,” she holds out her hand, manicured nails painted the exact red shade as her lips.

Sirius shakes her hand. “What’s your last name, Lost? I’m Sirius.”

“What’s yours, Liar?” she replies, a smile dancing on her lips.

Sirius grabs a couple of Muggle notes and hands them to the barman. “Whatever the lady ordered, I’ll have one.”

A red mouth print appears on the glass when she sips her drink – when Sirius drinks his, he discovers it’s strong but sweet, and he likes it.

When he turns again, Remus and the man are kissing, hands on each other’s arses.

“Your _very old friend from school_ is having fun,” Paradise coos, just enough humour in her voice to compel Sirius to throw a sideways glance at her.

“Yes, I can see that,” he shoots back, and dawns the rest of his drink in one long gulp. He doesn’t have the foggiest idea why he’s acting like he’s irritated – he must be drunker than he feels. He can spot at least thirty people more attractive than Remus in that club, including the one he’s currently talking to, and even if Remus was the most handsome man on earth – which he definitely isn’t – he’d still be… Remus. Just old Moony.

Kind, clever, considerate Moony – bugger all, he’s drunk.

He forces himself to bring James back to the forefront of his mind – remembering him and prodding the open wound of his loss is a more familiar pang and, at least, the stab of guilt sobers him up. It’s James he wants – but his mind is starting to talk back and promptly reminds him that James isn’t here anymore.

“We’re just friends,” he repeats, more for himself than for Paradise.

She shrugs and bats her long black eyelashes. “Isn’t it the way all love stories begin?”

Sirius opens his mouth. Closes it again. _Sometimes it’s the way love stories end_ , he almost replies, but Remus is approaching them, so Sirius smiles like he’s not having some kind of mental argument with himself.

“Hullo?” Remus says, “I’m John.” He uses his middle name in Muggle places – sneaky bastard.

“Paradise,” she winks at him like she knows something they don’t, which, at this point, might even be true. _Bugger all._

“Er, how drunk are you?” Remus asks Sirius, hands shoved in his faded jeans.

Sirius scoffs. “Not nearly enough.” If this _thing_ persists, he doesn’t believe he’d be able to hide it – he never learned how to.

“Do you think you could _drive_ home?” Remus asks, which is code for _please tell me you won’t Splinch._

“Sure. You leaving with grandpa?” Poor bloke is not even that old, Sirius is just being an arsehole for _no_ reason.

Remus laughs awkwardly and Paradise smiles. Sirius just feels like an idiot, so he arranges the corner of his mouth upwards and forces himself to say: “Go have fun, don’t worry about me, _John_ dearest.”

Remus nods and then he does something he’s never done before: he puts one hand on Sirius’ shoulder, bends down and kisses his forehead. “Night,” he says before he leaves, the crowd swallowing him and his man shortly after.

Paradise orders another round of shots.

“So what about you?” Sirius asks her.

She shrugs, her pretty lips pursed in a grimace. “You’re not the only one being a miserable fuck tonight.”

Sirius doesn’t even bother to protest: he is a miserable fuck tonight. Their little glasses clink and pink liquid sloshes on the counter. “Let’s get drunk and have a consolatory fuck?” Sirius suggests.

She arches a sleek red eyebrow. “Let’s do that.”

*

He still receives owls from James’ fans – the same fans he relentlessly teased James about, the same he hates for thinking they knew him only because he posed for a picture together or signed an autograph. The mailing addresses are from all over the world – sometimes they write a few lines, sometimes long, detailed accounts about how much James meant to them, what an example he was, how he’s in a better place and other bullshit – Sirius burns them all.

James would have laughed his arse off.

*

Month after month, he rediscovers the things that make him happy: taking out the bike and flying out of London with Remus who holds him tightly, trying new restaurants, going to gigs, sharing a joint, buying records and listening to them on Remus’ old vinyl player.

Just sitting on Remus’ battered couch, silence filled with friendship instead of loneliness.

*

Remus quietly slips in the corners of his life that were dusty and forgotten, until Sirius is so used to having him around – lunches at the Leaky and strolls between Diagon Alley and Vauxhall, Cooking Spells tried together and beers at the pub – that it seems odd when he’s not around.

Usually Remus spends two or three days after the full moon at his dad’s, but now that Lyall is in France for the warm season and his cottage is empty, Sirius invited him to rest in his house.

“Honey, I’m home,” he joked yesterday, as soon as he stepped out of the Floo in a cloud of green ashes, and then covered with a cough the inexplicable spike of embarrassment arising in his flushed cheeks. It was merely a silly joke that Remus welcomed with a mild smile, and the embarrassment quickly melted away, unlike the merriment associated with coming home to someone – no, to _Remus_ – clearly happy to see him. He’s still in very good spirits now, a day later, and it’s unsettling that something so prosaic as lying on the couch with his legs over Remus’ lap and listening to music could fill him with a sort of contentment that he usually associated with – well. With being happy.

He watches Remus’ hands turning a page of the book he’s reading, some obscure Muggle poetry only Remus can be interested in, nails bitten, scarred knuckles, calloused fingers – not pretty hands. And _yet_. Upon closer inspection, Sirius discovers, with an exquisite shiver, that in the warm light spilling from the shaded floor lamp, Remus’ eyes are not really brown but not entirely green either, that his nose is dusted with a cluster of freckles, and under his left eye lies the smallest faded scar. Not a particularly handsome face, his brain reminds him, and _yet_. The column of his neck is an alluring curve, his shoulders nicely built under the striped t-shirt, and his mouth knows how to smile. _It knows how to kiss, too_ , the thrum in Sirius’ pulse suggests.

He gulps down a scalding sip of tea to distract himself, but it’s a lost battle, a battle he’s not even sure he wants to win. Why _fight_ this? Because of James is a ludicrous answer – James is gone and he clearly didn’t have the same qualms about Lily Evans. Or maybe he did – Sirius doesn’t know.

But he smells his own soap on Remus’ messy hair and if he could only lean in, just a little, he’d smell _Remus’_ –

“You keep staring at me,” Remus says, without looking up from his book. Sirius should be way more embarrassed than he is, but he knows he’s not the only one staring – Remus is only subtler about it.

“Read me something from this book of yours,” he asks.

Remus leafs quickly through the pages, and Merlin, Sirius never had a thing for fingers, and _yet_.

“ _I have nothing to do in this world_

_except burn_

_I love you unto death_

_Your restlessness_

_a mad wind whistles in your head_

_you are sick from laughing_

_you flee me for a bitter void_

_tearing your heart apart_

_tear me apart if you like_

_my fever-burned eyes_

_find you in the night.”_

Sirius stares at Remus browsing through the book to find the page he was reading before. He chose this passage, he went to look for it, to read it aloud to Sirius – and there’s a physical ache in his hands, a yearn to reach out and touch, so much that his blood almost pulses with uncast magic. “That’s intense,” he says, just because silence is, at this point, way too charged.

“Well, it’s French poetry, of course it’s intense,” Remus grins, and Sirius relaxes a bit, just a bit, because the craving in his body doesn’t disappear, but his mind is crowded with thoughts.

He has no idea if he should feel more guilty than he does or less – his shame is rooted within himself, in his previously unshakable faith that his love for James was, surely, above ordinary people loves’, and therefore he should be suffering and wallowing in his pain like a tragic hero, not _getting over it –_ how he hates this phrase – like an ordinary man and falling in love again, like many others do.

He’s not even sure he _is_ getting over anything. When he was a kid, in the library at Grimmauld Place, he remembers finding an old illustrated book on dark magic in Transfiguration, and he read aloud a Conjuration spell to scare Regulus: the caster allows someone who loses a limb to grow another, made of silver and unbreakable, but he can add any curse to the new limb – from making it incapable to hold a quill to cursing it to choke someone. One could argue the person who owns such a limb got over being an amputee – but they will never be the same as before. They will always bear a scar, they will always have to live and sleep and eat and work with a new, unpredictable part of them. Sirius believes he got his silver heart: he might have got over it, but it will never beat at the same rhythm as it did once.

James would smack him in the back of his head, he’s sure of it, for comparing losing him to bearing a dark curse, and Remus would have a good laugh, too.

*

Summer drifts in on the gentle spring wind, blowing warmth on his bare back, humidity sticking to his skin like a damp slide. The water isn’t exactly hot yet but was lukewarm enough to lure Sirius into diving in for a swim – he reached the open water and glided into the liquid embrace of the sea, weightless, even thoughtless: a nonentity inside a blue and green infinity. He slips underwater, the world green-dark and muted, bubbles streaming from his mouth and nose, ears ringing with pressure, limbs as light as if he managed to overcome gravity – but then his eyes sting and his lungs protest, so he swims up, spluttering salty water as soon as he opens his mouth to breath.

He pushes wet hair from his eyes – then he stills. He hears Remus’ voice carried by the wind, calling his name, so he turns towards the shore, and there he is, still trudging in shallow water but drawing nearer.

“What the fuck? Come back!” Now Sirius hears him clearly: he’s shouting and he’s also carrying his wand. “Sirius, just come back!”

Sirius starts to swim back to the shore. That’s just _so_ Remus: he refuses to swim together because clearly he doesn’t trust himself – or Sirius – to behave, but he panics as soon as he loses sight of him for a split second. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so infuriatingly Remus-y, that he can’t stand being too far from Sirius but wants to maintain some safe distance.

“What were you doing?” Remus half-shouts, even if they’re not that distant anymore, but he stops walking as soon as Sirius starts to walk instead of swimming, the water already too shallow.

“It’s called swimming, Remus, you should try it, it’s very relaxing when someone’s not shouting at you –”

Sirius already feels the burning sun scorching his back, proof the Screening Charm he’s put on earlier is fading – he could ask Remus to cast it again, but not only is Remus still too far to aim, he’s also crossing his arms and shaking his head.

“What the hell, you disappeared for –”

“For what, two seconds?” Sirius cuts him off, finally approaching him – and of course, that’s when Remus turns his back at him and starts to slog back to the beach. He didn’t even remove his shirt, now damp with perspiration and seawater, and Sirius marches ahead, not even thinking, splashes of water hitting his chest in his effort to catch up with him.

“Fucking Merlin, were you _really_ afraid I was going to off myself – do me a favour, Remus! If I wanted to die I would’ve done it a long time ago – it’s not like I haven’t thought about it.”

Remus doesn’t even look back, ploughing ahead far quicker than him – he’s surely cast a mild Imperturbable Charm on himself to repel water – and now Sirius’ blood is almost hot with rage. Bugger all, he hasn’t felt so angry in a long time and it almost feels good, to dump it all and vent.

“For the record, I would choose something with a bit more flair than drowning, and I certainly wouldn’t do it in front of you,” he yells. Remus does not turn and his feet are already on the sand. “I’m not that cruel, you’d probably spend the rest of your life tormenting yourself –”

Merlin, Sirius _is_ going to give him _safe distance_ – he’ll even give him his soppy kissing movie scene: he shrugs his human skin away and runs in a whirlwind of foam and splashes.

He barks, paws at the wet sand, waggles his tail. Remus is not impressed in the slightest, and sits on his towel, picking up a discarded book. Padfoot jumps and shifts, tumbling over him in a mess of wet, sandy, sweaty elbows and ankles. “Ow! _Sirius_ –”

Sirius scrambles on top of him, their legs pressed together, both hands braced at the sides of Remus’ head, long hair dripping on his shirt – Remus stills and the air rarefies until each breath is as loud as thunder and everything that isn’t Remus’ body fades away. The universe falls between the cluster of freckles sprinkled on Remus’ nose and the faded scar below his right eye, the one you can’t see unless you know where to look. But Sirius knows. He smooths his thumb over it just as Remus’ hands clutch at his shoulders, and then they’re kissing, open-mouthed and wet and salty. The unattended spark between them _thrums_ and stirs and stokes until it burns and Remus hooks his ankles over Sirius’ bare thighs, Sirius presses his hardness against him. They sway and roll over. _Delightful_ , that Remus doesn’t stay where he’s put, until he pulls away, eyes wide and hair a mess of sand and tangles. Fuck everything, Sirius at this point only _wants_ and he might burst if they stop.

“Don’t say we –”

“Let’s do this inside, we’re dirty –”

“– shouldn’t. _Oh_. Yes, yes.” Sirius pushes Remus to the side, scrambles up and puts the dog on, running until he’s in the tiny bedroom, pleasantly cool and dark with the shutters closed. Merlin knows it’s better none of them _thinks_ , at the moment.

He shifts back as Remus comes through the door, wand in hand – he was right, they should clean themselves, Sirius is itchy with sand and salt in places he probably shouldn’t be – and this might be the moment things get awkward very, very quickly.

“Clean me up?” Sirius asks. _It’s awkward only if I allow it to be,_ he tells himself, and if Remus’ hand shakes a little, his Charm is flawless, and in one tingly, fresh wave, Sirius feels as clean as if he just stepped out of the shower. 

“Now you?” he suggests, and Remus casts the Charm on himself at once.

It’s still there, the spark fizzling between them, not quenched, but only lurking, lying in wait for one of them to fan the flame, so Sirius lowers his swim trunks until they drop to the floor, kicks them away and then sits on the bed, hands craving Remus’ skin under them.

Remus takes off his shirt but keeps his trunks, and when he stands between Sirius’ legs, it seems like an eternity passed, even if it’s been two seconds – they don’t talk because hands and skin speak a much more meaningful language than words. Remus’ fingers push Sirius’ hair behind his ears, thumbs caressing the sides of his face, and he stares at him like he hasn’t seen him in a very long time – and in a way it’s true, he’s never seen him like this, and the way he is feasting on the mere sight of him – Sirius bows his head to kiss his navel and his hands move by themselves, sliding Remus’ trunks down, palming his arse, everything hot and confusing and new.

It’s clumsy and rushed and sweet and over too soon. Sirius doesn’t think he’ll ever stop thinking about Remus’ white knuckles clutching the pillow, the convex arch of his spine, the broken way he murmurs his name.

Sirius is still catching his breath when a vague malaise plants its roots low in his stomach, a strange queasiness he can’t quite place, and then, still fuzzy with pleasure, he just voices what crosses his confused head. “Do you feel guilty?”

Remus, who’s wiping his stomach with a towel he just Summoned, stills and sighs. It comes out more like a groan. “Fuck.” He sits up but Sirius’ instincts are faster than his slow mind, and he places a palm on his chest to stop him.

“You regret it, don’t you – we shouldn’t hav–”

“No, come on, don’t say that!” Sirius has no idea what he’s blabbering, but one thing he knows is that he can’t let Remus walk away from that bed convinced that they shouldn’t have done it. “I… just. I asked _you_ if you feel guilty, I didn’t say I do.” It makes no sense, and he could have just said _it was hot, let’s do it again,_ instead of ruining it.

“But do you?” Remus asks. He looks vulnerable naked, cheeks still flushed, hair dishevelled, eyes huge, and Sirius must close his eyes for a moment.

Remus sure has honed his skill of asking difficult questions instead of answering them, but this is the moment where Sirius must reach for the truth within himself if he wants truth in return, and it’s like uprooting the words he so wanted to keep underground.

“I feel guilty because I _don’t_ feel guilty – if you understand what I mean,” he explains. He’s avoided talking about James until now and he begs Remus with his eyes to not make him spell it out.

Remus’ shoulders slump just a bit, and Sirius counts it as a success. “Yes, I think I do, yes.”

“So do _you_ feel guilty?” Sirius asks again, because he trusts Remus’ conscience far more than his own.

Remus only shakes his head and slowly lies down on the pillow again, but he still looks troubled, as if a shadow clouded his afterglow, and Sirius doesn’t need to strain himself to understand what he might be thinking about. That he’s a palliative for James, that he’s a second choice, that Sirius will never love him enough – and Sirius himself is wary of making promises he’s not sure he can keep.

He smooths the vertical line between Remus’ eyebrows with his index finger. “Don’t be worried.” He kisses his cheek, his nose, his eyelids. “Give me a kiss.” And Remus does.

*

He doesn’t see Remus or hear from him for two days, which shouldn’t be a long time at all but it is: lately they’ve been meeting every other day and talking on the phone when they don’t. Sirius misses him, and he understands that Remus wants him to call him first. What he doesn’t understand is why he doesn’t at once.

It’s James who convinces him to stop being an arse and go to him, or, precisely, it’s James’ smiling picture winking at him on his desk at the office – the frame is dusted with a thin layer of grey.

Regulus once said, in his unnervingly cold, logical tone, that Sirius can’t keep clinging to a ghost, but he got it all wrong. Sirius’ guilt is rooted in the relentless flow of time slowly but inevitably healing his pain, his resilience paving the way for laughing, going out, jogging, trying new food, pining, loving. Living.

Nobody told him how hard it is when the pain starts to subside, when he breathes again and, sometimes, nothing hurts. When he has good days, when he’s happy – and he’s happy with Remus.

When he knocks on Remus’ door, he recognises in his eyes the same anguish, but also the same desire to love, and if his smile is a bit cautious, his first words are: “Are you mad at me?”

Sirius shakes his head. “Not at all. I missed you,” he says.

Remus tilts his face upwards, and his hazel eyes studying Sirius from under light eyelashes, betraying his nerves, his fear of rejection, fill Sirius with tenderness.

They kiss like trying a new spell, carefully, slowly, and the lure of tugging Remus’ clothes off to feel his hot, scarred skin is too much to resist, the urge of pressing himself against him too strong, and he hasn’t felt this compulsion to touch and bite and lick and smell in forever, maybe since he was a teenager eager to fuck and learn what he could do with his body.

Guilt still hums under his skin, and fear, too, fear of not being capable of loving Remus like he deserves, but then Remus sighs and reaches between his legs, and everything else is futile and far, far away.

This time, after, they hold each other and trade kisses instead of words.

*

Remus is a late sleeper. Sirius likes to coax him into waking up by caressing his warm back, kissing his shoulder, calling him softly in their still dark bedroom, until Remus stirs and mumbles some nonsense, nose pressed on the pillow – sometimes Sirius even serves him breakfast in bed, fearing Remus hasn’t been spoiled enough in his life. He loves that Remus brings out of him a kindness he didn’t think he was capable of. He loves how Remus is now everywhere in the house – from his socks and jumpers in the wardrobe to his favourite mug left to dry in the cupboard, from his dog-eared books scattered on the table to his toothbrush next to Sirius’ on the sink.

Sometimes they fight, mainly about money, stupid arguments Sirius attempts to resolve with a kiss – and he’s missed that, too, the daily hindrances that come with a relationship.

Some days, Remus gets silent and tired, and while he’s eager to blame it on the moon, Sirius understands it’s more: it’s doubt and low self-esteem and fear of not being enough. He still hasn’t learned how to cut through these barriers, but he has time.

Today is one of those days. Remus has been on edge and strangely taciturn since he woke up, like a wild animal who’s been invited inside and doesn’t really know how to behave; he says it’s because he can sense the pull of the waxing moon, but the full is in five days. Sirius fusses over him all evening – he orders take away from his favourite Chinese restaurant, puts on The Clash on repeat and rubs Remus’ sore feet while he’s lying on the couch with his eyes closed, forehead creased with worry lines. Sirius counts it as a small victory each time he elicits a smile from him.

Later, they fuck in utter silence, with the lights off except for a couple of candles floating above them, their flickering flames bathing Remus’ face in a warm orange glow – sometimes it’s quick and dirty and other times they wrestle in bed and laugh, but whenever one of them is in a _mood_ , it gets so intense that Sirius’ body is consumed by it, and if afterwards he’s always pleasantly exhausted, his lips burn with all the unsaid words he wants to say but hasn’t yet. _Are you worried I don’t love you enough_ , he almost says tonight. _Because I do._

He does love Remus. He loves that Remus is kind and funny, loves his gruff voice and the way the left corner of his mouth turns upwards when he tries not to laugh, he loves that he asks for nothing but gives everything. He loves to hear him breathing deeply late at night, before falling asleep.

He still loves James, he always will, and he misses him, misses what they were many years ago – maybe even what they could’ve been – and all the things they never managed to say to each other.

But he can’t change the past – he can only live in the present.

The next morning, it’s Sunday. Remus yawns, stretches his arms and buries his nose in Sirius’ hair. “Morning,” he mumbles. 

Sirius smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://aryastark-valarmorghulis.tumblr.com/)!


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